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From Publishers Weekly
"Flattered you think my political philosophy worth a thesis and hopeful you will be able to define it more clearly than I ever have!" wrote critic and philosopher Dwight Macdonald to a graduate student in the 1950s. He then delivered a cogent pr‚cis of his political philosophy drawing on anarchists such as Kropotkin, rejecting both British and Russian collectivism and decrying war that negates the last part of his statement and stunningly exhibits his intelligence, wit and moral giantism. Born in 1906, Macdonald attended Exeter and Yale, and became by turns a Marxist, a Trotskyist, a pacifist, an anarchist, a prominent anti-Stalinist and a leading opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Along the way he edited the Partisan Review (1937-1943) and founded the influential magazine Politics in 1944, which introduced such writers as Simone Weil, Albert Camus and Mary McCarthy. The early letters to his parents and, from the 1930s through the '70s, the dozens written to many noted American editors, thinkers and writers (from Henry Luce and Stephen Spender to John Leonard and Harrison Salisbury) range from insightful and witty to cranky (he complains about advances and royalties and gripes about friends). Macdonald is an important American thinker whose work has been much overlooked and whose ever-evolving political philosophies have gone misunderstood. This wonderful collection should do much to remedy the situation and will be vital to students and scholars of American political thought and intellectual history.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
An acute observer and critic of American politics, society, and culture from the 1930s to the 1970s, Macdonald corresponded with a vast array of the movers and shakers of his time in the United States and Europe. He is probably best remembered now as a pivotal figure of anti-Stalinist Left politics as well as a seminal analyst of the mass culture of his day. Macdonald made his mark as an editor of the influential left-of-center magazine Partisan Review and later as founder of his own magazine, Politics. All of these activities are illuminated in this generous selection of letters, compiled by Wreszin (emeritus, history, Queens Coll.; A Rebel in Defense of Tradition: The Life and Politics of Dwight Mcdonald). Written with verve and gusto, the letters show him to be a penetrating critic of the American scene of his time. Recommended for academic libraries. Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., New York
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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New Yorker, Partisan Review, Great Books, New Republic, Dwight Macdonald, Waldorf Conference, Ford Foundation, State Department, Against the American Grain, Edmund Wilson, Columbia University, The Root Is Man, Soviet Russia, New Deal, Dorothy Day, President Johnson, United States, Communist Party, Workers Party, Sidney Hook, Meyer Schapiro, Soviet Union, New Leader, Ivan Morris, Robert Lowell Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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New Yorker, Partisan Review, Great Books, New Republic, Dwight Macdonald, Waldorf Conference, Ford Foundation, State Department, Against the American Grain, Edmund Wilson, Columbia University, The Root Is Man, Soviet Russia, New Deal, Dorothy Day, President Johnson, United States, Communist Party, Workers Party, Sidney Hook, Meyer Schapiro, Soviet Union, New Leader, Ivan Morris, Robert Lowell Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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